The “DO NOT CALL” law is regulated by three different agencies – first, The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA), empowered the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) to impose restrictions on the use of automatic telephone dialing systems, facsimiles and artificial or prerecorded messages. These restrictions require telemarketers to maintain a “do not call list,” develop and maintain written policies for maintaining their list, and train employees to follow these policies. Also, telemarketers may not call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. and they must identify themselves to consumers.

Second, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in cooperation with the FCC and with input from the Department of Consumer Protection, created a national Do-Not-Call Registry in 2003. Close to one million Connecticut residential phone numbers were immediately registered into the national Do-Not-Call Registry from Connecticut’s own no-call list that the Department of Consumer Protection had implemented a year earlier. Today, the national Do-Not-Call Registry covers both interstate and intra-state telemarketing calls, accepts cell phone numbers, and keeps a number registered until the consumer requests that it be removed, or disconnects the line. The FTC also takes complaints, conducts investigations and penalizes rogue marketers.

Third, Connecticut‘s own telemarketing law(Chapter 743)mirrors the TCPA and enables the Department of Consumer Protection to penalize Connecticut companies that continue to violate the law.

Complaints: Although complaints are useful to help regulators identify and stop telemarketers from breaking the law, consumers can and should take steps to prevent unwanted calls, and for those that persist, to cut them short.

Verify your registration on the Do-Not-Call website and never provide your phone number on feedback forms, surveys or other transaction documents. Be sure to expressly tell the businesses that you deal with to put you on their no-call list, and if unwanted calls come through, don’t hesitate to just hang up.

We hope consumers will file complaints with us in order to help stop violators, but please understand that a complaint filed with the Department or the FTC will not immediately stop a company from calling. Time is needed to gather information, verify the complaint, and contact the company to fully assess the existence of a violation, and then formulate the appropriate penalty and remedy.

Exemptions to the “Do Not Call” Registry: Unless you tell them to add you to their own no-call list, marketers with whom you have conducted business in the last eighteen months are exempt from the “Do Not Call” requirement. So are calls from:

a business about an existing debt, contract or payment

a business that just started within the last year

tax-exempt or nonprofit entities and political campaigners

prerecorded messages or emergency calls needed for health and safety, prior consent, non-commercial, tax-exempt, non profit or from a business with which you have a pre existing relationship.

Auto-Dialed and Pre-Recorded Calls:

Calls using artificial or prerecorded voice messages – including those that do not use auto-dialers – may not be made to home phone numbers -- except for :

emergency calls needed to ensure the consumer’s health and safety;

calls for which you have given prior express consent;

non-commercial calls;

calls that don’t include or introduce any unsolicited advertisements or constitute telephone solicitations;

calls by, or on behalf of, tax-exempt non-profit organizations; or

calls from entities with which you have an established business relationship.

The Do Not Call laws apply to consumer phone lines only – they don’t cover businesses that receive telemarketing calls.

Prevent unwanted calls by verifying your registration on the Do- Not-Call website at www.donotcall.gov, by NOT providing your phone number on feedback forms, surveys or other business transaction documents, and by telling businesses that you want to be on their no-call list. If an unwanted call does get through, exercise your right to just hang up.